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CBS 'Mom' goes to a very dark place

By Joanne Ostrow, The Denver Post

Posted:
10/10/2013 03:56:03 PM MDT

This photo shows Anna Faris and Allison Janey in an undated photo from the new CBS show, "Mom."

If you weren't paying strict attention, you might have mistaken the CBS half-hour “Mom” for a typical network TV sitcom. It's very funny, there are plenty of jokes, the rhythms of set-up, punchline, kicker are familiar. But “Mom” is something different, especially for network TV.

Addiction comedy! Recovery humor! Dark, unsettling, a sobering commentary on American society, Chuck Lorre's “Mom” zeroes in on alcoholism and teen pregnancy in a way the happy mass medium hasn't dared until now.

Mom and daughter run into each other at AA meetings. Now the granddaughter is pregnant (her loser boyfriend is excited for her, clueless until he's told he's the father), following the family tradition of unplanned, unmarried child bearing.

Allison Janey is terrific as Bonnie, the soon-to-be-great-grandmother with a checkered past, displaying a physical lightness she wasn't able to portray on “The West Wing.” Anna Faris is endearing as Christy, the soon-to-be grandmother, newly sober and regularly rolling her eyes at her mother's (Bonnie's) lack of parenting skills.

The premise is second chances, starting over, redemption. Of course there have been tough bluecollar tragicomedies in the past — “Roseanne,” and Lorre's “Grace Under Fire” spring to mind — but “Mom” starts from a much darker place and stays focused on the generational patterns.

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Lorre said once the writers determined to put Christy's mistakes and wasted years behind her, the comedy took shape. “By having the character of Christy have the nightmare of her life, for the most part, being in the rear-view mirror allowed us to explore this character in a way that we could have children in the show, and we could root for her, and we're not worried about the children. We know that all of her efforts are entirely focused on redeeming the relationship with her kids, redeeming the relationship with the people at work, and reclaiming her life.”

Continual references to the mishaps and embarrassments of her drunk days are used for laughs, and they are funny, but there's a sadness to the comedy that distinguishes it from the usual cheery TV family dysfunction. Here's a show that might have arrived on cable in recent years. CBS, banking on Lorre's track record, boldly picked it up. Now more viewers need to do the same.

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